Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“Uncle Aaron was with me,” she replied nonchalantly.
Of course he was. I wasn’t even surprised.
“Cleared,” she told the guy sitting beside her.
Hannah raised her hand up into the window. It was at eye level for me, she was on her toes to see both people, and the man, who resembled a Russian powerlifter, gently stamped her hand with a giant red ladybug. Not what I expected. She then walked to the left through an ancient turnstile gate that only spun one way, locking her away from me unless I followed her into the underworld and got my hand stamped as well.
The only way in was through the gate, which made a horrible squeaking, grinding noise when it turned, like nails on a chalkboard. The entire front was lined with actual chain-link fence that you would have to be Spider-Man to get over.
“How is this legal?” I asked the woman. “What if there’s a fire?”
“Oh, the whole back, where the registers are, open up to the street. It’s perfectly safe.”
“And you sign waiver,” the powerlifter reminded me.
“Of course,” I said as the woman told him I was cleared and I got the giant ladybug on me as well.
Once we were on the other side together, I heard a voice ask a question I didn’t catch.
“Pardon me?”
“She said bag or rolling,” Hannah told me, and the woman nodded. “And we’ll take a bag, no question.”
The woman winked at her and passed both Hannah and I enormous neon-yellow nylon totes. No one could miss them. People on the space shuttle would probably be able to spot them if we walked outside.
“What was that about?”
“Only noobs take the rolling baskets,” she assured me. “All the walkways are metal grates, and the little wheels get stuck. It’s a total PITA.”
“And the totes are this heinous color so no one can steal them.”
“You’re a smart cookie,” she praised me playfully.
Standing there, looking down the first row, it hit me. “Holy crap, you’ve found your real-life Warehouse 13, haven’t you.”
“Yes!” she squealed.
“God. You loved that show.”
“I wanted to work there,” she said with a pout.
“Hannah.” I groaned her name, seeing that it was just like Costco, if the place I loved carried things that you’d find at a flea market or an antique store or your crazy aunt’s house. There were metal risers that people were walking on that didn’t look at all stable.
“Those do bend from time to time,” she assured me, hooking her arm through mine and leading me away. “And the front ones are for people looking for boring things like toys or electronics or shoes. That’s not what we’re about.”
“Who brought you here?” I asked her, walking with her down three rows, over, under a weird arch, down a set of stairs and up two flights.
“Nana and her friends, and later, I brought Uncle Aaron.”
“Your grandmother doesn’t climb the risers, does she?”
“Oh no, she looks at the real jewelry and the vintage décor.”
“There’s real jewelry?”
“Yeah, but that’s a whole other room we don’t need to go in today. You have to have a credit card on file and everything.”
“Do you have a card on file?”
“I have one of my corporate cards on file.”
“Since when do you have a––” Aaron Sutter had given her one, of course. “––never mind,” I grumbled.
“It’s only for one-of-a-kind finds,” she explained. “Uncle Aaron is a connoisseur of beautiful things. You know that. He’s like Elizabeth Taylor, who said something about us not owning jewelry but being caretakers for the time that we own the pieces. It’s something like that. I’d have to look up the quote to be sure.”
It felt like we walked for a while longer, and then the lighting changed, went from the horrible fluorescent bulbs to the soft warm light of lamps. I noted people in vests walking along beside us.
“We must be back with the expensive breakable stuff.”
She nodded.
“You have a whole life I don’t know about, don’t you.”
“Not a whole life,” she murmured. “But if you think about it, we all have experiences the other people in our house know nothing about.”
I nodded.
“I mean, we have no idea what it is to be Dad and what he sees and knows when he’s out there doing his marshal business. I don’t know what it’s like to meet with clients and pitch campaigns like you do, come up with ideas out of thin air.”
“It’s not that hard.”
“I think it’s not hard for you because you’re gifted that way. Not everyone is creative.”
“That’s true.”
“And I have no idea what it’s like to be Kola and have my brain filled with facts about cells or diseases or simply all that math. I mean, to me, that’s mind numbing, and I can’t imagine how he interacts with his teachers and peers.”
“No, me neither.”
“Sometimes it blows my mind that Kola knows people and people know Kola who none of us have ever met. Isn’t that wild?”